Lai Yut (Beautiful Moon Tarts)

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice flour
• 1 tablespoon clarified goose fat
• 2 eggs
• ice-cold water
• 2 cups lychee nuts
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 0.25 cup crystallized limes
• 1 teaspoon mixed spices
• 0.25 pound beef fat
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup preserved pineapple
• 0.25 cup blanched chopped almonds
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon mixed spices
• candied orange peel or fruit coloring

Instructions

1. Work a heaping tablespoonful of clarified goose fat into two cups of rice flour.
2. Add ice-cold water slowly to make a stiff paste.
3. Roll out the paste and brush with whipped egg whites.
4. Fold over several times, brushing with egg white each time.
5. Roll out to about quarter of an inch thick and cut into rounds about the size of a small saucer.
6. Prepare filling: mix stoned and mashed lychee nuts, sugar, crystallized limes, and mixed spices; or alternatively mix beef fat, chopped dates, preserved pineapple, blanched almonds, sugar, and mixed spices.
7. Place filling on one round of paste.
8. Top with another round of paste.
9. Press the edges together, forming a rounded edge.
10. Brush all again with white of egg.
11. Bake for fifty minutes in a moderate oven.
12. Remove the outer flake to reveal the snow-white tart interior.
13. Decorate with a yellow moon in the center, cut from candied orange peel or painted with fruit coloring.